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Reinaldo Waveqche (L), aged 24, kisses his new wife Adelfa Marta Volpes, aged 82, after they got married in the city of Santa Fe, 490 km (305 miles) north of Buenos Aires, September 28, 2007. The couple, who had been living together since he was 15, will spend their honeymoon in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.A 24-YEAR-OLD man who married an 82-year-old woman in Argentina on Friday insists it is a union based on "great love" rather than money.

Reinaldo Waveqche, who has lived with his elderly lover, Adelfa Volpes, since the age of 15, said he preferred "mature women".

Ms Volpes, a retiree who is single and has no children, said their age difference had never mattered to either of them.

"I am very pleased," she said.

"Reinaldo is marvellous: very good, kind and educated. The age difference has never been important for us."

Surrounded by family, friends and media, the couple made their vows in a civil ceremony because the octogenarian said she would feel "ridiculous" in a church wedding.

Mr Waveqche said their relationship, which began after the death of his mother, was based on respect and love.

Ms Volpes, a friend of his late mother, had offered him a home when he was "only a boy", he said.

She said there had been an instant connection from the moment he moved in at 15, but it did not turn into romance until he turned 18. She confirmed that she instigated the romance.

Mr Waveqche, who is unemployed, and Ms Volpes will spend their honeymoon in Rio de Janeiro.

VISITORS to the opening day of Sexpo in South Africa today were treated to live demonstrations by Australian artist Tim Patch, alias "Pricasso," of his penis paintings of famous global figures.

Neither US President George W Bush, former British prime minister Tony Blair nor former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi were spared the rod as a naked but for a top hat Patch hammered out a series of surprisingly realistic depictions.

Lengthy queues had formed outside the Gallagher Estate in Midrand outside Johannesburg by mid-morning on the first day of the first sex-themed fair in a country with a puritanical past under apartheid.

The organisers of Sexpo Johannesburg have said they hope to attract 30,000 visitors to the four-day show that originated in Australia, which features a mix of workshops, exhibition stands and live performances.Patch has painted portraits of some of the worlds most famous people including George Bush and Queen of England.

Li Tangyong and Chen Guilan in wedding dress posing for their wedding photo in Shunde in southern China's Guangdong Province on Thursday, September 27, 2007.The shortest couple, with the bridegroom standing at 1.1 meters and the bride at 0.7 meters, will tie the knot during the upcoming National Day holiday. They are also challenging the "shortest couple to get married" in Guinness World Records, New Express reported on Friday.

Soon after the pre-marriage health check for the bridegroom Li Tangyong and bride Chen Guilan, they applied in the Guinness World Records' Guangdong office.

Li and Chen will get married in a group wedding ceremony with 30 other couples. The couple told New Express that they hoped to have the records certificate on the day of their wedding.

Ram Kumar, 36, a cobbler, works at a shoe factory in Jammu September 2007. Kumar, who works at a shoe factory in the northern town of Jammu, spends his weekends making miniature shoes, half-an-inch (1.3 cm) long, in an attempt to get into the Guinness World Book of Records or the Indian equivalent

Well, we did it and we had a blast! A bunch of guys from about 15 countries spent 2 weeks building the world’s largest pencil. It wasn’t easy. We had to make the pencil to scale, it had to look precisely like a normal pencil and it had to be made out of exactly the same materials. We used over 8,000 board feet of wood, 4,500 pounds of 10-inch graphite, which ran the length of the 76-foot pencil, and we even manufactured a 250-pound eraser. It took our two main carpenters a full day to sharpen the point of the pencil using a Sawzall, axes, and a grinding machine!The pencil was designed to commemorate Sri Chinmoy’s 76th birthday. Sri Chinmoy is a highly prolific writer and artist, so we thought presenting him with a giant writing instrument would be appropriate. About 10 years ago, we built a 20-foot pencil for Sri Chinmoy, but, a few years later, the European pencil company, Faber-Castell, constructed a 64-foot pencil to erase (pardon the pun) our record. I wouldn’t have thought of getting the record back except, this past December, I happened to meet the renowned Count Faber-Castell at a vacation resort in Turkey. We became friendly and I mentioned that I had the hope of someday regaining the pencil record. He suddenly became very serious and retorted, "Impossible, you’ll never do it!” That was a challenge I just couldn’t ignore!

Sri Chinmoy seemed to appreciate the pencil, and he even spent 5 minutes creating a line drawing by moving a piece of Bristol board across the pencil tip. Then, to make the birthday even more memorable, we called the Unique Rigging Company, whom we had contracted, and informed them that we were ready to begin the next phase of the celebration. We hoped they could live up to their name and do something truly unique! Using a 100-foot crane, they would try to lift the pencil into a vertical position! You could feel the tension in the air. We had put a lot of effort into making the pencil exceptionally strong, but still, there was no guarantee that the pencil wouldn’t crack in half under the strain of being lifted. That would be a horrible way to end the festivities!We moved all of the spectators to a safe distance and asked the lady in the house closest to the pencil to stay inside. We reassured her that, if the pencil broke, her house wouldn’t get hit. Still, she was nervous. We fastened 2 special steel cradles onto the pencil and the crane guys rigged up our birthday present to their 40-ton crane. As the pencil was lifted off it’s base, the crane operator noticed that the pencil registered a much heavier weight than we had estimated. Including the steel cradles and bolts, our work of art was more than 22,000 pounds, approaching the limit of the crane’s capacity. To be safe, the crane operator went extra slowly but, within minutes, to the cheers of more than one thousand spectators, our 7-story pencil was vertical and, still in one piece!We spread considerable joy, but now that the celebrations are over, the big question on everyone’s mind is - WHAT DO WE DO WITH THE PENCIL? My friend, Bishwas, a chief engineer involved in the project, calculated that we could make almost 2 million regular-sized pencils from our record-setting creation! I was hoping to donate the pencil to a children’s museum or park, but so far we've had no takers. Another friend suggested calling the Governor of Pennsylvania and asking if he would want to put the pencil at a prominent spot along one of the state’s borders. They could paint on the pencil, in big bold letters, “Welcome to Pennsylvania”!

My pal from Seattle contacted the Ripleys Museum in India and they seemed interested, but how do we get our 11-ton pencil over there? A doctor I know had another idea. He hails from Texas and he was sure someone in the “everything is bigger in Texas” state would be enthusiastic. Texas got a second vote from another friend who is related to the guy in Amarillo who owns Cadillac Ranch. She thought that he might want a giant pencil stuck in the ground to keep his ten upside down Caddies company!

One thing is for sure, though. Wherever the pencil ends up, it will create a sensation. Even in New York City, we didn’t go unnoticed. After the pencil got lifted, two New York policemen called on us. It seems that our pencil showed up on satellite surveillance photos and the officers were told to come over immediately and investigate. When the cops showed up and saw that it was only a pencil, they broke up laughing. I have to admit, from a certain angle our beloved pencil does look like a missile. It’s too bad we can’t just attach some engines and send it off into orbit!Source:- Ashrita

When she was born, 15 weeks premature and weighing ten and a half ounces, her father's confidence was about the only thing on Kimberly Mueller's side.

In the few snatched moments he was allowed before his daughter was whisked away by doctors, Andreas Mueller spoke from his heart.

"I whispered to her: 'Kimberly, you'll make it,'" he recalled.

The size of a mobile phone: Kimberley Mueller weighed just over 10 ounces when she was born in Hanover, Germany - making her the world's smallest surviving baby

With a survival chance of less than 1,000 to one, every day she has got through since then is a triumph.

Six months later, Kimberly has finally been allowed to go home to her parents in Hanover.

"Babies as small as this usually have no chance," said Dr Oliver Moeller, a heart specialist who treated her.

"We are incredibly lucky that she lived. Such a case I have never experienced. We had a lot of luck ... a lot."

Kimberly is the smallest baby ever born in Germany and the youngest to survive.

She was just 10.2 inches long and weighed little more than a packet of butter when she arrived in the 25th week of her mother's pregnancy.

Now six months, Kimberley has been allowed home for the first time (Above with mother Petra and father Andreas)

Petra Mueller, 38, who remained at her daughter's bedside in intensive care at the University Clinic in Goettingen, was allowed only to stroke her with her finger.

"It was the nicest thing when she would grip my finger in her tiny hands," she recalled.

"She was like a little bear gripping a tree trunk, just hanging on for life as if she was saying 'Don't leave me, mummy'."

Kimberly was placed in an incubator for warmth, given a respirator to help her breathe and fed through a drip. She was also given a cocktail of drugs to boost an immune system that was barely formed.

At three months, she faced a major setback, when doctors feared she could be blind. But laser treatment corrected the problem.

Kimberley's chances of living were rated at worse than 1,000-1 when she was born 15 weeks prematurely

Kimberly's progress was underlined when she arrived home this week weighing five and a half pounds and measuring 17 inches.

During the coming weeks she will continue to be fed artificially and will need to have oxygen as her lungs keep developing.

The world's smallest known surviving baby was Rumaisa Rahman who weighed just 8.6 ounces when she was born in Chicago in 2004.

A child touches a space-bred pumpkin in a supermarket in Xining, capital of Northwest China's Qinghai Porvince, The giant pimpkin, which weighs 74 kilograms, attracted many customer to admire it.

Gao Lei, a young man from Laiyang, a city of Shandong province, displayed his stunt of stopping a working fan with the tip of his tongue in this undated picture. [Photo: shm.com.cn]

Have you ever tried using your fingers to stop the fast rotating propeller of an electric fan? Even more, have you thought of using your tongue to stop it? Ok here is someone who can do it.

Gao Lei, a young man from Laiyang, Shandong province, can stop a running fan with his own tongue, the Yantai Evening News reports.

When Gao carefully made contact with the fan using his tongue, the rotating fan began to slow down and finally came to a stop. When he lifted his tongue, the fan resumed rotating as before. But when a pen was used to touch the fan, the pen was flung away.

Gao will join a TV program called "Want to Challenge" on China Central Television to display his stunt next month.

But the young man can also play other tricks. He can do vocal imitation and he can drink a bottle of beer in 20 seconds, standing upside down.

With these stunts, he joined various TV programs in the recent years, wowing the audience time and time again.

A Siberian woman who gave birth to her 12th child - doing more than her fair share to stem Russia's population decline - was stunned to find that little Nadia weighed in at a massive 17.1 lb (7.75kg).

Nadia was delivered by caesarean section in the local maternity hospital in the Altai region on September 17, joining eight sisters and three brothers, a local reporter said."We were all simply in shock," said Nadia's mother, Tatyana Barabanova, 43. "What did the father say? He couldn't say a thing - he just stood there blinking."

"I ate everything, we don't have the money for special foods so I just ate potatoes, noodles and tomatoes," she told the reporter, adding that all her previous babies had weighed more than 5 kg.The Guinness World Records lists a 10.2 kg baby boy born in Italy in 1955, and a 10.8 kg baby boy who was born in the United States in 1879 but died 11 hours later.

The average weight for most healthy newborn babies is around 7.06 lb, according to World Health Organisation figures.

A Suffolk man lost six stone in six months on a diet of baked beans.

James Skeates, 28, has trimmed down from 21-stone to 15-stone by eating at least two large cans of beans a day.The carpenter, of Haverhill, says he now has the energy to keep up with his young children Eleanor, three, and George, 10 months.

James joined his local Slimming World Class in March and lost around a stone a month to hit his target weight, reports the Cambridge Evening News.

James said: "I was getting through two tins a day, eating them in my breaks at work, then at home with jacket potatoes, wholemeal bread or pasta. I was never hungry, but the weight kept coming off.

"It didn't really cause me any problems eating all the beans, but strangely now I have reached my target weight I have recently suffered a bit more wind."

Isabel Hooley, a dietician for Suffolk NHS Primary Care Trust, said: "Baked beans are fine as part of a healthy, balanced diet, but we would not recommend more than one portion a day.

"Baked beans are low calorie, so if you eat them instead of cheese on toast for example, I would expect you to lose weight."

Hou Dongming, the "bee-man", sits amid a swarm of bees to demonstrate his command of them on Monday, September 24, 2007, in a village near Siping, Jilin Province in northeast China. [Photo: New Culture View]

A professional beekeeper stunned onlookers by performing an unusual "bee-man show", letting thousands upon thousands of bees creep all over his body, on Monday in a village near Siping, Jilin Province in northeast China.

Once considered as a consummate skill among beekeepers, the "bee-man show", which demonstrates the beekeeper's control over his pets, has become a lost tradition in many parts of China.

The performer, Hou Dongming, 33, is a local beekeeper in Siping's Pingxi County. Hou said that he learned the skill from his father, Hou Wanfu, 60, who can also perform the stunning show, New Culture View reports.

Hou sat still among dozens of beehives, wearing a hat, a pair of black swimming goggles and tightly-sealed trousers. In addition, his upper body was naked, and his nostrils and ear holes stuffed with soft paper.

Besides this attire, a necklace with a small cage, in which a queen bee was kept, was tied around his neck. The queen bee emits a message that attracts the other bees.

Hou's father began to drive bees onto his son's body, and within half an hour much of his body was covered up. It was estimated that the swarm was made up of some 60,000 bees.

After the show, 10 sting marks were found on Hou's back and head.

Hou said that the best time to perform the show is in June, when bees are at their best mood.The region's "bee-man show" record was set by his father, when on his 60th birthday the old man let 100,000 bees infest him.

The Hou family has a tradition of breeding bees: they keep over 300 beehives, the largest number in Siping.

Hou Wanfu revealed that it is necessary to feed the bees before starting the show to make sure they are in a good mood. Otherwise, more stings will be the result.

"Such a show is rare in our country; we are the only ones who can do this in northeast China." Hou Wanfu said.

Several tourism cities in the Yangtze River Delta held their dragon boat contest on September 23 in Nanjing, with 20-plus teams competing in it.

Dave Mullins claims he is an "unusually slow" swimmer, but with lungs burning and legs aching he smashed the world record for an underwater swim without a breath not once, but twice.

Yesterday, the Wellington man swam 244 metres underwater on one breath, blitzing a record he set on Friday by 18 metres.

Using a mono fin, Mullins swam nonstop for four minutes and two seconds, completing nearly five lengths of the 50-metre Naenae pool.

"You have to get it pretty much spot on," he said. "You're after maximum efficiency, so the turns are pretty important."

Mullins said that though he was an "unusually slow" swimmer, the sport was all about lasting the distance.

American judge Grant Graves said yesterday's effort at the freediving competition - hosted for the first time in New Zealand - was one of the biggest increases in a world record he had heard of. "It was a very impressive swim."

Mullins said it would take a few days to recover from the rigours of busting world records because of the buildup of lactic acid in his legs.

The weekend exploits would set him up nicely for the Freediving World Championship in Egypt in six weeks, he said. There he will compete in an ocean freediving event, in which divers go as deep as they can without breathing equipment.

Mullins practises holding his breath as part of his training, making his muscles work while oxygen-starved. Earlier this year he set a national freediving record, becoming just the fifth man to reach 100 metres.

TV presenter Adrian Chiles joined 500 others to help break the world record for the largest sub-aqua dinner party.

The Guinness Book of Records is set to confirm exactly how many guests sat down to the gourmet meal of smoked salmon, vegetables and toffee apple.

Wearing dinner jackets and ball gowns, diners indulged in their three-course meal at the outdoor swimming pool at The Park Club in Acton, west London.

The food - which was served to sittings of about 20 people every 20 minutes - was prepared in jelly to stop it from disintegrating in the water.

To eat, the diners had to remove their aqua lung mouth pieces, fork in the food and then replace the breathing equipment while pressing a button to purge away the water.

The event raised more than £200,000 ($400,000) for charities including Save the Children, The Shooting Star Hospice, Breakthrough Breast Cancer and The British Heart Foundation.Source:-Spluch

A "huge" python surprised the life out of a young mum after slithering into her bathroom unannounced as she washed her four-month-old baby.

The five foot snake managed to creep into the house in Dartford, Kent, after possibly using a hole in an outer wall.

Leanne Smith, 18, said: "We had been out for the evening and got home around 10.30pm and I wanted to bath Millie before I put her to bed.

Shocked: Leanne Smith with daughter Millie

"I was sitting in the bath with her. I saw something move from the corner of my eye and then I heard this huge hiss!

"I looked round and there was this snake coiled up with its head up in the air as if it was going to attack.

"I screamed out for help to my partner Ben saying there was a snake in the bathroom."

Leanne's partner Ben Payne, 18, ran into the room and grabbed Millie and helped Leanne from the bath.

RSPCA officer Anthony Pulfer was called to the home to rescue the royal king python, which may have escaped from an owner in the neighbourhood.

A five-foot python (similar to pictured) slid into the bathroom as Leanne Smith bathed her four-month-old daughter Millie

Although it is not a constricting snake or poisonous, the species can bite if it feels threatened, the RSPCA said. Both the woman and baby were unhurt.

Smith's neighbour, who has experience of looking after large snakes, has offered to care for the reptile while its owner is tracked down.

Mr Pulfer said: "This is a huge snake and it was quite a shock for the poor lady. Unfortunately, we have had to rescue lots of snakes lately.

"People take on these snakes and don't realise how big they can grow to and that they often escape."

An RSPCA spokeswoman said escaped pet snakes were often enticed into people's homes by the prospect of warmth.

Some can scale outer walls vertically to find a snug spot near hot pipes or central heating boilers.

She said: "Pythons can climb up the side of buildings. They will go anywhere it is warm so bathroom pipes are an obvious draw.

"We do get a lot of calls to rescue escaped snakes but to get one as large as this is a bit unusual."

Ostional Beach in Santa Cruz, 563 km (350 miles) north of San Jose, Sept. 21, 2007. More than 100 million eggs are laid by turtles on the beach during a five-day period. Residents of this small town on the Pacific coast collect about one percent of the eggs to sell in Costa Rica.

Two turtles arrive to lay eggs

Turtles arrive to lay eggs

A turtle arrives to lay eggs

People collect turtle eggs

People collect turtle eggs

Costa Rican men carry sacks filled with turtle eggs washed ashore

A survey was taken around the world and the results were determined by: 1) Quality of women, 2) Amount of Women per men ratio and 3) Ease of talking to women.

10. Amsterdam, Holland

This city has women more beautiful riding past on bicycles than other cities. Dutch girls are amazing in so many ways, they're trendy, as well as cool, they're fun, and they are exceptionally beautiful. They're the kind of girls that you just want to date for a very long time.

9. Tel Aviv, Israel

Israel has some of the best looking women in the world. Perhaps it is something about those green eyes that are just particularly attractive.

8. Montreal, Canada

The exquisite taste of France but with the convenient location of Canada, Montreal is truly one of the world's best cities filled with beautiful women. So many universities and colleges and so many women with fashion sense and a desire to take care of their bodies. One of the best parts is that the women all speak French commonly known as the language of love.

7. Caracas, Venezuela

Caracas is the capital of Venezuela. For the record, Venezuela is the country with more Miss Universe Pageant titles than any other nation, therefore you know it's capital is going to be teeming full of beautiful women. The women of Caracas are so beautiful that they make Brazilian women look like trashier counterparts.

6. Moscow , Russia

Mother Russia is home to some of the world's finest women. It's not only the regularity of tall, blonde hair, blue eyed women that make it so great, it's also the amazing level of friendliness that you will find.

5. Los Angeles, California

How much can be said about L.A. girls, well I think you will find upon arrival that so much can be said you'll find yourself at a lack of words. The women of L.A. are on a level unlike most any other kind you may have ever seen. All the beautiful people from across the United States flock to this mecca, this is where the cool people come to live, to work, & to try to "make it".

4. Varna, Bulgaria

Bulgaria is a land of no drug laws, cheap vodka, mechanical bulls on the beach, waterslide and some of the most uninhibited natural beauties in the world. This land has cafes with inflatable furniture, thongs and g-strings everywhere you turn your head, see through pants on every corner and topless sunbathing on every beach. What's more, these women retain a certain level of class and sophistication and take great care of their bodies. The most important part of Bulgaria is the charm and beauty that you will find in these stunning women.

3. Buenos Aires, Argentina

Buenos Aires is a city unlike any other. The women of Buenos Aires are beautiful, natural women who are comfortable in their amazing bodies. Nearly every women in Buenos Aires is a model waiting to be found. The parties are legendary and the clubs and events are overloaded with beautiful, approachable, and fun women.

2. Copenhagen, Denmark

Copenhagen's women are probably some of the most approachable you will ever meet. Also, these women are much more liberated sexually than most other cities throughout the world. They are all over, working in all places and always ready to head to the local bar for a drink or two. The environment runs at a much slower pace and the women enjoy a wide variety of situations.

1. Stockholm, Sweden

It seems like every woman in Stockholm is amazingly beautiful. Also, these women know how to party and enjoy each other. Per capita the women of Stockholm were the most beautiful. These women were also extremely educated and friendly. These women make you feel good in every way. Sweden is a must visit on a future vacation!

Sonya Thomas may only weigh 7.5st - but the competitive eater still munched her way past dozens of beefy rivals at the National Buffalo Wing Festival.She managed to scoff 173 wings in 12 minutes to win the wing-eating contest in Buffalo, New York.

"That's 2.35kgs of wings," said Brian Kahle, spokesman for the annual event in the city where Buffalo wings were born.

Ms Thomas, 40, who is originally from South Korea and now lives in Alexandria, Virginia, also held the festival's previous record of 161 wings in 12 minutes, set in 2004."She's the crowd favorite," Mr Kahle said. "It was 12 huge guys and her."

She is ranked number five by the International Federation of Competitive Eating.

According to the federation's website, number-one ranking Joey Chestnut holds the 12-minute record for chicken wings, downing 3.4kgs of them on May 21.

On September 16, 2007, the Russian city Rostov, staff is a bunch of up to 70 meters roast chicken Series, which is the world's longest roast chicken Cyprus, but also to create a new Guinness record.Source:-qqNews

A craftsman from Jiangxi is planning to use 130,000 toothpicks in a painting, forming the shape of Kwan-Yin, a goddess from Chinese folklore.Toothpicks may only be convenient pieces of wood in most people's eyes, but in Zheng Changlun's opinion, they have another usage---making mosaics.

The craftsman from Shangrao, east China's Jiangxi province, is now working on a painstaking mosaic that is 1.2 meters high and 0.6 meters wide.

A local newspaper reported on Wednesday that he is planning to incorporate 130,000 toothpicks in making a figure painting of Kwan-Yin, or Avalokiteshvara, the Goddess of Mercy from Chinese folklore.

Zheng, 49, drew his inspiration from a TV program which showed an Albanian artist sticking together 1.5 million toothpicks in making a mosaic of a galloping horse. The artist was included into the Guinness Book of World Records for his work.

Zheng also plans to challenge the artist's work with his own after he finish the current work of Kwan-Yin, the report said.Source:-jxnews.com